Keep
by Nagia
Summary: Garrus becomes uncharacteristically overprotective in the middle of a mission.  Hilarity ensues.
1. herding cats

**Keep**

_one: herding cats_

* * *

><p>Despite the rooms between them, Kasumi's faintly accented voice murmurs, "Shepard, we're running out of time."<p>

Immediately after, Shepard hears the echoing blue-hot crack of Garrus's Viper. Two shots, fired off in the fastest succession she's ever heard him manage.

The sounds only make the hostages shrink away from her. Somebody cries out, high and thin, and a child sobs.

Garru's voice comes over their hardsuit comm system: _:::Scratch two! Problem guards are down_

"Kasumi, get in here. We've got to get these people moving. Garrus, cover us."

_:::Copy that._ After a moment, the comm relay clicks. _::: In position. Kasumi?_

_::: Going dark in three!_

There's silence from the peanut gallery while Shepard tries to convince the hostages to trust her.

"Please," she says, at last, and hears muffled thumps in the hall outside the room. "I can get you all out safely. Just work with me."

More thumps, and then the door Shepard jammed four minutes ago hisses open. Kasumi slides in with bloodied gloves; the hood can't hide her smile.

One of the hostages makes a soft whining sound. Shepard lets her gaze drift over them.

She makes eye-contact with a turian. Her fringe is far shorter than Garrus's, closer to an asari's fronds. But her eyes, though too-bright above mandibles that twitch, seem almost serene.

It's hard to imagine how she could be so calm, with the blue stain spreading along one leg, the way she holds one arm close to her chest in a near-universal gesture.

"Shepard," Kasumi says. Her tone — as close to panicky as she's ever heard the thief — tells Shepard everything she needs to know.

"We've got C-Sec ready to cover us if we get you out now, but if we're not fast, they'll be in just as much trouble as you are now."

And the calm turian woman nods once. "It's our only chance," she tells the other hostages. Murmurs of agreement ripple through the small group.

And Shepard, who has spent nearly ten minutes trying to convince the hostages of the exact same thing, feels all but useless.

"Kasumi, get them organized. Garrus, sitrep." She watches Kasumi weave her way through the crowd. Shepard pops the heatsink on her Eviscerator, counts thermal clips and heads at once.

_::: Clear out here. Won't stay that way long._

The calm turian looks over at her. "Shepard, yes? We can lead them out together—"

"But you'll need help walking." Shepard looks over at Kasumi, but the other human woman doesn't have the build to support a turian.

The last thing she thinks, before she switches out the Eviscerator for the Phalanx and settles herself under the turian woman's uninjured shoulder, is that she's never doing a favor like this for Bailey again. It's a lie, of course. She'd do this and more, over and over again.


	2. fragile things

**Keep**

_two: fragile things_

* * *

><p>Kasumi fades backward, locking the doors behind them and ready to keep the stragglers moving. Maybe it's the too-cheery smile, or the blood drops on her gloves and boots, or the way she can vanish. Whatever the reason, she's an excellent way to prod the slower hostags to keep moving forward.<p>

Shepard keeps her eyes roving ahead. She scarcely notices the bodies of the men she had to gun down to get access to the hostages. Garrus is around here somewhere, and if they don't move fast, the mercs will have reinforcements.

"Your name?"

"Antilarax," the turian says. "You are Commander Shepard? _The_ Commander Shepard?"

"Yes," Shepard says. "Don't mind me, but you don't look like you should weigh _near_ this much. Is it the carapace?"

Antilarax's lower voice box hums before she speaks, the turian equivalent of a very quiet chuckle. "More like the pregnancy, I expect."

"You're pregnant? And they broke your arm? Tell me the bastards didn't know." There are lines. There are lines even filthy thieving hostage-taking scum shouldn't cross.

That sounds like something Garrus would say. Well, he'd be right on this one, anyway.

"I'm sure they didn't." Antilarax's voice is soothing.

Shepard can only shake her head, too angry to form a reply. She scans her HUD, checks positions, and opens a link. "Garrus, we're approaching your position."

_::: I see you. Shepard—!_

His alarm has her demanding a sitrep.

He makes a harsh noise in both voiceboxes, but then says, _::: No change. Still clear. On my way._

She hears a mumur, but the words don't come through clearly enough for the translator. The tone, though? There's no mistaking the tone. It's his _This is gonna suck_ voice. She half-wonders what the hell he's on about. Her team is weird — was weird even in its first incarnation on the _Normandy SR1_— there's no telling what's got him in a twist.

Antilarax limps a few more steps forward. Shepard keeps supporting her.

Garrus steps into view. He's strapped his Viper to his back and holds the Vindicator in both hands. His eyes have narrowed deeply and he holds his mandibles stiff, tense.

"Commander, are we ready?" The under-echo of his second voice seems louder than the top voice.

"Let's go."

He nods, but doesn't move. Shepard watches his gaze travel over Antilarax, sweeping to take in the broken arm and the bloodstained leg. He looks at the pistol she holds in one hand and widens his eyes.

"Can't say I recommend that, Shepard."

"Hell, Garrus, it's not a Claymore. If I have to fire it —"

"That's an awkward grip. You'll break your wrist." He turns the words into a growl.

"Most of my bones are reinforced with metal. I can take it."

Antilarax does that lower-voice-box-hum-chuckle thing. "Don't bother arguing with him. Men get like this."

"Not with me they don't," she snaps. "Garrus, we don't have many options. How many people in this group can help her move? Unless you want to help her and let _me_ cover _you_."

Garrus looks between them, while Antilarax simply laughs at them.

"It's a _pistol_, Garrus."

"So you're going to try to fire it one handed?"

She's quiet for a second, and then points to the still-healing cybernetics scars. "I'll fire it however I have to, and I'm not about to let a pregnant woman get hurt. Give me a little trust here."

"If you're supporting her, you shouldn't even _be_ this far forward."

"And leave you without backup?"

"You think you're going to back me up with a _pistol_—?"

"Damnit, Garrus, you can't have this argument both ways!"

And Antilarax laughs again. "Turian men. They always forget what women are made of the minute we start gaining weight. Do you have a lighter pistol, Commander?"

"Oh, hell no. Bad enough that Shepard's shooting one-handed. You're not going to let her do it too, are you?"


	3. outstubborned death

**Keep**

_three: out-stubborned death_

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><p>In the end, Shepard rips part of Antilarax's jacket and constructs a makeshift sling. Two other hostages — tall human men — support Antilarax by her shoulders; the pregnant turian dwarfs both of them. Maybe Antilarax is tall for a turian woman, or maybe the women are only slightly shorter than the men.<p>

Not something she's got too much time to think about. She hands two packs of medigel to Antilarax and says, "In case that leg wound opens again."

_::: Shep, my camera loop just shorted._

That makes Shepard look up, scanning the walls for cameras. If they're lucky, there won't be any in this hallway. But of course they're not lucky; she's just going to have to hope the mercs don't have an eye on the security system.

Garrus's breath hisses through his teeth. The sound vanishes beneath the report of the Vindicator.

He only fires once. The camera's light dims.

"This day just gets better and better. Next time, tell Bailey no."

They both know she won't. She doesn't even grace that with a response. Instead, she says, "We need to move forward. They'll be swarming all over us soon."

Garrus's mandibles flare. He sucks in a breath, eyes narrowing. "Right. Just stay behind me."

"Not my style."

"Humor me."

"Not this time, Garrus." She cocks the Eviscerator, just to make her point, and takes a few steps forward. "One of us needs to stay with the civilians."

"Obviously, that's you."

"Except they don't trust me. You used to be C-Sec. And you're a trustworthy, likable guy."

"You want me to let you play vanguard? With no cover at all? Not happening."

"I don't remember that being up to you."

"It's. Not. Happening," he says, and the under-echo makes his voice grate on her ears.

"You're picking one hell of a time to get squeamish."

"I'm not going to let you get yourself killed again."

"Do you have a better plan?"

He's silent for a few seconds, mandibles twitching as he stares evaluatingly at her. "I can't convince you to stay back, can I?"

"If you try, I'll laugh at you."

"Then we go together. Do all the cleaning up before the civilians even need to see it."

Alright, fine. An acceptable plan, no matter how much she hates compromising on orders. "Then turn on your count sync, Garrus. Let's have some fun with this."

"Right, Shepard. Fun."

Shepard opens the link and says, "Kasumi, Garrus and I are going to push. You're still on rearguard."

_::: Can do. Keep turning out the lights and locking the doors?_

"That's the idea."

And then they're off. She storms past him, half an eye on her HUD. Behind her, he growls something about crazy human women who are squishier than they think they are, but she hears his footsteps behind her. She picks up the pace rather than reply.

She doesn't keep the lead for long. Garrus pushes past her. She's fast, but he's got the longer legs.

He's always been a stubborn shit — too stubborn to die, just like she's been most of her life, and she wouldn't have him any other way — but this protective streak is new. Shepard isn't sure whether she wants to headbump him or smack him.


	4. exercise in masochism

**Keep**

_four: exercise in masochism_

* * *

><p>Matching Garrus's pace is an exercise in masochism. Shepard has to push herself just to keep up. Her lungs ache and her legs burn at the effort.<p>

But it's worth it to watch his expression shift from determination to a ferocious snarl when he sees her breaking the merc line.

He stares in horror for all of three seconds when she biotically charges her way to the middle of a group.

He plunges into the fight right after her, though. The Vindicator screams his frustration for him. Three mercs take bullets to the throat, while a fourth gets two between the eyes.

Shepard punches a merc, hard enough she hears his jaw break, and rams the butt of the Eviscerator into another merc's chest. He stumbles backward, totally unprepared for the moment she rears back and fires the Eviscerator at his head.

He takes all three serrated wedges to the face. One rips through an eye. Two years ago, she wouldn't have seen the damage, but whatever the fuck they've replaced her eyes with catches it, slows it down to make sure she gets it. She watches the eye bulge, watches the veins in the eyeball pop —

Red leaks, then sprays, and she hears the squelch even over the thunder of the Vindicator.

She wipes the blood from her face and turns. Who's next?

The mercs between Shepard and Garrus all fall. He fires in semi-automatic bursts, aiming high on the torso.

And then he's moving for her. Blood spackles his armor — most of it red, only a little blue and none of that blue blood is his. His mouth peels open long enough to show her his teeth.

"Let's keep moving forward."

"Stay behind me, Shepard. Please."

"Hiding behind the big strong turian's never been my style. What's got you so knotted up about it?"

Garrus sucks in a breath, then shakes his head. His mandibles flare for a moment before he speaks. "You just — I — Shepard —"

"Or you can say some names incoherently." More red dots appear on her HUD and she hisses, "Nevermind. Hostile contact."

It's a small group. Garrus puts himself between her and the mercs, takes them down in a single volley of fire.

"Nice work," she says.

"Accuracy at distances greater than three feet is only one of my many fine qualities. I threw it in for free."

Jackass, she thinks. He sounds both faintly mollified at the praise and unable to resist pointing out that she likes point blank range.

She sighs. "It's a valid tactic. Are we seriously going to argue about this?"

"You're putting yourself in needless danger!"

"I'm a soldier trained for CQC, and I want to make sure those hostages make it out safe. I'm not punching Praetorians in their skull-mouths or anything, here."

"I still don't like it."

Of course he doesn't. And as they advance, he keeps throwing himself between her and the mercs whenever he gets the chance. She retaliates by charging through their front lines and hitting people with the Eviscerator. Which only leads to him spraying Vindicator fire all over the place.

Every now and then, Kasumi checks in to inform them that their cleared halls are staying clear.

Shepard checks her HUD. "Bailey's team's up ahead. Let's double back and escort the hostages out."

"Finally, a decision we agree on."

"Don't think we're not going to be discussing this back on the ship," she warns him.

He looks faintly worried for a moment, but then he shakes his head.


	5. home is a name

**Keep**

_five: home is a name_

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><p>The Normandy's airlock hisses closed behind them. Garrus never bothers with the debrief if she doesn't order him to. So it's no surprise when he makes a quick exit.<p>

She lets him leave. Doesn't bother asking him to stay. If he needs space, he needs space. After what happened with Sidonis, she hasn't been able to begrudge him that.

Shepard and Kasumi handle the debriefs on their own. They do just fine at it; after only half an hour, Miranda has the beginnings of a twelve-page report and Shepard has notes for the requisitions/expenses paperwork she'll send the Illusive Man.

That's as much work done as she can manage, for now. Time to go see what Garrus has to say for himself.

She's still in her armor when she finds him hunched over one of the monitoring terminals in the forward battery, his attention supposedly on the screen. He presses two keys endlessly: left and right.

Poor bastard's scrolling through the same damn algorithm again and again.

"Line five or line six, Shepard?"

"It's all numbers to me," she replies. "So, _now_ you're afraid of an argument? But not back there?"

He taps two different keys and the lines of code vanish. He turns to face her.

"You were willing to put a pregnant hostage in needless danger, then charged into the worst of the mercs over and over, to prove a point." He pauses, makes a two-toned sound suspiciously like a growl. "And no, I'm not afraid to tell you that. Not there, and not here."

She spreads her hands. "You're right about Antilarax. That was a mistake, and I should have come up with a better option sooner."

"But I'm not right about you?"

"I'm _trained_ for CQC. It's what I do, Garrus; it's what I've always done. What I did today, you've seen a thousand times."

He takes a step forward. "You were never this bad during the hunt for Saren."

"I had Geth Destroyers in my face more times than I can count, and I punched them in the face with a shotgun, then, too."

"But you didn't go chasing them." Another step closer. He's almost in her face, now.

Her stomach sinks. It seems like any second, he's going to press his mouth to her cheek and flare his mandibles. And that's no sweet, cheek-kissing human gesture.

"Garrus —"

He places both hands on her shoulders, digs in until she swears she can feel the tip of his claw finding the metal she's reinforced with. Then he leans his head forward, presses his forehead against hers. His mandibles flare.

Turian body language for _I love you, now shut the hell up_.

"You didn't really think," he growls to the bridge of her nose, "that I'd let you just walk into danger."

She presses one hand to the unscarred side of his face, pushes him sideways. Can't afford to duck away. Not now.

"What's this about _letting_ me? I may be your girlfriend, Garrus, but I'm your commanding officer, too."

"Situations like this," he says, and one voice growls while the other purrs, "I could..."

But then he shakes his head, takes a step away. "No. I couldn't. That's impossible."

"Garrus?" She half wants to ask if he plans on rejoining the land of the sane anytime soon, but there's no call to be flippant.

"I thought — I mean you seemed — I can still smell — I know it's crazy, impossible, but I keep thinking —"

"Thinking?"

When he looks back at her, his eyes are wild, unfocused. His voice comes out in a rush, so quickly that her translator barely catches it: "I-think-you-need-to-take-a-shower-now."


	6. truth

**Keep**

_six: truth_

* * *

><p>Three words echo through her brain: <em>What the hell?<em> She can half imagine them bouncing around her cranium, ricocheting off the implants.

What comes out of her mouth, though, is, "Are you saying I smell bad?"

"Well, no. Not exactly. I. Aw, crap. There's no way out of that, is there?"

"I don't think there is." He seems genuinely distressed, but Shepard can't help but be charmed by all his blatant awkward.

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, mandibles flaring and brow ridges twitching faintly with every breath. Pretty much everything about him screams 'nervous' and she wants to let him off the hook.

Instead, she lifts an eyebrow.

He makes noises in his lower voice box for a few moments before he finally says, "Shepard, I'll explain everything. I promise. Just... shower first?"

There's really no arguing with him on this one, is there? If she keeps trying to talk to him, he'll just get more flustered.

"Be in my quarters in fifteen," she says.

* * *

><p>Shepard strips off the armor first. She throws her towel onto her couch and settles onto it, cleans her armor painstakingly. She could let the armory do it, just lay it all in the drawers and give the order to EDI. But she never had it cleaned automatically on the <em>Normandy SR1<em>. It's not a habit she's going to start.

The door hisses open while she's still running a rag soaked in hardsuit-safe disinfectant along the joints between the Kestrel suit's plates.

Shepard looks up. Garrus's mandibles flare; he begins to backpedal. Which is strange to see a turian do. Their long legs have slightly different musculature. Not to mention the body shape rapidly moving backward.

"Garrus," she says. "Come on in. Talk to me."

"I'll be back once you're, you know."

"Showered? I'm about to. But I want you to be here when I get back. And I'd like a couple of answers _now_."

The door shuts with a whispering metallic whine.

Garrus crosses the room. He keeps his distance even as he perches on the edge of the couch, grips the leather tight in one gloved hand.

Best to just dive in.

"I'm just a little confused," she says. "What _can_ you tell me about what's going on?

His eyes widen in alarm. He rakes his gaze over her, even as the hand gripping the edge of the couch clenches. "You want to hear about it _now_?"

She looks at him for a long moment. It's more than an evaluating look — though she is evaluating — it's almost like breathing him in. Not just seeing how he is, but wondering who he is today, because he's not the man he was yesterday.

She sets the armor aside and stands. She shucks the skinsuit she wore under the armor. Between her own sweat and the blood that soaked in somehow, the suit sticks to her back. She peels it without regard, hears a faint scratch as it unsticks from the metal rivets in her spine.

Thank you, Cerberus, for those.

Garrus just watches, still clearly alarmed. He coughs once, looks away a moment, before saying, "Huh. I guess not."

"I expect answers when I get out," Shepard says.

* * *

><p>She steps out of her bathroom dressed in casuals, to find Garrus cleaning her armor. He's concentrating on it with intensity she's only seen a few times before.<p>

Like he can't quite pull himself away from it. She settles in beside him and takes her shoulder plates back from him.

Garrus makes a double-toned sound in his throat. She could swear it's a whistle and a growl at once. More distress signs. Or maybe possessiveness?

"Thanks, Garrus," she says.

He shifts in his seat, looking anywhere but at her.

"I'm hoping I smell better. And I'd really like to know why how I _smell_ has anything to do with this."

He hems and haws and rubs at the back of his neck and looks away, constantly. She takes the rag from him, too, and he reaches after it before he stops himself. Then he cocks his head, like a bird considering something.

"Do me a favor," he says. "And smell that."

Dumbly, she takes a tentative whiff. And feels her nose wrinkle at the sour scent of her sweat, and turian blood, and disinfectant.

"Smells like combat and hardsuit cleaner."

Garrus coughs again. "Maybe only turians can smell it. You smelled... I mean, I know it's crazy."

He's said that before. Shepard has to hold herself back from interrupting. She wasn't born as patient as she is now; it's hard won and hard taught.

"Garrus?"

He sighs, heavily. And when he speaks, his voice is quiet. "You dragged a bleeding pregnant turian through a building. Got her scent all over you. It mixed in with your sweat."

"You thought I was Antilarax?"

He actually recoils for an instant before shaking his head wildly. She's always thought that was mostly a human gesture, but everything she knows about turians she's learned from Garrus or the extranet. And the extranet never said anything one way or another about head-shaking.

"No, no, no," he tells her, voice echoing strange and harsh in his throat. "I know who you are, Shepard. No way I could forget it. But you smelled... different."

Pieces start falling together. Or, rather, images and connections flash through her head in bursts of color and fragments of sentences. Sometimes she wonders if the Beacons changed the way she thought, or maybe if it was the Cipher altering the geometry of her logic.

"I smelled pregnant."

Garrus doesn't look at her when he says, "Yeah. You smelled pregnant."

Which doesn't put his frustration or protectiveness into any kind of perspective just yet. So she thinks back. The events outline themselves in vivid still-lifes and the planes of shapes: her headlong rush through the building, conversations with Antilarax.

_Men get like this_, the turian woman says in a snapping, crackling moment and Shepard looks up at Garrus. _They always forget what women are made of the minute we start gaining weight._

"So turian men get protective of pregnant women? The smell triggers some kind of instinct for it?"

Garrus rasp-whistles a hum that turns into an actual chuckle. There's a distinct embarrassed edge to it, but he seems less painfully uncomfortable. "They call it nesting."

Those words sit between them for a few seconds.

"You thought I was...?"

"No, not really. That would've been, what, delusional? I kept telling myself you weren't. But then you'd move, or the air would circulate."

"And you'd react anyway."

He says nothing. She doesn't say anything either, because what can she say? What judgment is there to make, what questions are there to ask?

"So when I pointed out that I was your commanding officer, you started to say you could do something in 'situations like this.' Then you stopped." Shepard leans a little closer to him as she asks.

He doesn't lean away. He looks down at her for a moment, before looking at the shoulder plates she's still holding onto.

"In the turian military, I could've relieved you of command," he says, softly. "Of course, then you could turn around and relieve _me_. Depending on whose family has the higher social rank, it can get ugly."

She stares at him.

"What, you think the Hierarchy doesn't have social politics? And I just said we get weird about pregnancy."

"That whole social hierarchy chain of rank thing," she says, dazed. "I thought it'd stop that kind of infighting. And how does my relieving you after you pull me out work?"

"You'd have the same grounds I'd be using," he says. "And the Hierarchy is military. I'd stop you from pulling rank, but I couldn't pull you completely out of the CoC. Probably. Depending on families and other officers."

She shakes her head, still a little pole-axed. "Sounds like a nightmare."

"The Hierarchy doesn't like those situations. Real stigma on the parents, too. Nobody thinks there's anything dumber than opening that can of worms in the middle of active duty."

"Then I'll do my best not to get pregnant while we're out here in the field," she says, keeping her tone deliberately dry.

That makes him laugh, his tone a little rueful. He bridges the gap between them, and she curls up against him, and he presses his mouth against the curve where her neck and shoulder meet. She hears him draw in a breath.

They're quiet for a little while. Maybe out of regret for what they'll never give each other.


	7. end and begin

**Keep**

_seven: end and begin_

* * *

><p>Shepard finds him in the Main Battery. He's back to scrolling through two specific lines of code, and the sight of it makes her smile.<p>

"What if it wasn't line five _or_ line six?"

Garrus tilts his head up without looking at her. "I thought it was all numbers to you."

"It is," she says. "But if you keep going over it and not finding the error, what if the error isn't there?"

"Or what if my math is wrong?"

She's got no answer for that. If his math is wrong, they'll all die. If the Collectors punch through the ship's new armor, they'll all die. If she's wrong about Jack or Miranda or Grunt, they'll all die.

She doesn't tell him any of that. He hears it anyway, or at least some of it. "I'll ask EDI and one of those engineers later. Did you need me for something?"

"Suit up," she says. "We're hitting dirt in two hours. Blue Suns base."

"And I said we never went anywhere nice," he says, humming a chuckle.

"This time, try not to throw yourself between me and everything trying to kill us. Let me handle the CQC."

"I hear point-blank range is a valid strategy," he says, mandibles flaring and eyebrow ridges settling in a turian grin. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

Shepard shakes her head as she leaves the battery. Next up, Kasumi. And to see if Antilarax has sent her another email.


End file.
